


held me in the palm of your hand

by annperkinsface



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 01:13:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3590796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annperkinsface/pseuds/annperkinsface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're a hard gem to find these days."</p><p>It sounds more like an accusation than she means it to be. Rose's smile slips. Pearl's chest grows tight and hollow. Stupid, she thinks, fingers whitening around her elbow. You didn't come here to start something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	held me in the palm of your hand

Petals litter the ground under her feet, a whisper that she is close, growing to a murmur when green gives way to pink. Pearl slows when she crests the hill; stops; stares. Rose stands at the base of her favorite tree, body facing outwards, face upturned to a breeze. Her eyes are shut, and she's smiling, wind tugging at her hair, the edges of her dress. Pearl's lips part but no sound escapes. She swallows dryly.

Rose's eyes open. She turns and blinks, once, twice, fingers curling behind her ear. She looks surprised but pleased. "Pearl."

Something tightens and loosens all at once. Pearl inches closer, hand awkwardly cupping her elbow. "Rose." She smiles. "You're a hard gem to find these days."

It sounds more like an accusation than she means it to be. Rose's smile slips. Pearl's chest grows tight and hollow. Stupid, she thinks, fingers whitening around her elbow. You didn't come here to start something.

Rose looks at Pearl with pale, steady eyes and nods. "Yet you always seem to know just where to find me." She smiles, soft and fond, and Pearl thinks of Rose's room, vacant, empty. She thinks of how she would've checked eight other places if she hadn't found her here and would've kept checking long after that. She thinks: I miss you and you're right in front of me.

She says, "Well, this is your tree."

"Not just mine," Rose says. "You're here too. That makes it ours, don't you think?"

Thousands of years and Rose still makes her feel tongue-tied and silly. "I meant that you created it with magic," Pearl's half smiling, "but yes. I suppose."

She doesn't let the thought spoil; doesn't think of other people with Rose in this place. Ours. Something shared between the two of them and no one else. She likes the sound of it. She always has.

"No supposing." Gentle fingertips on Pearl's arms, shoulders. Pearl sighs, stops holding herself so taut. Her eyelashes flutter; her fingers unfurl. "It is."

Pearl's face upturns. She wants to take Rose's fingers; root her to here, to now. This singular moment in time where nothing seems to exist except for them, but a wind picks up, and the cherry blossoms stir, and the moment breaks, slipping away as Rose does, her fingers reaching out to pluck a petal from mid air.

Rose laughs in delight, all bright eyes and wind swept hair. "Isn't the Earth just beautiful?"

Only because you're here, she thinks, but it's just more words to swallow. Pearl smiles and tries to let this be enough. "Yes. It is."

**Author's Note:**

> i was thinking about what if pearl's favorite tree that we saw in gem glow and got destroyed by holo-pearl in steven and the swordfighter was rose quartz' and made myself sad. and then it spiraled into pearl angsting about greg/rose without explicitly saying anything about greg/rose. writing~


End file.
